Monday, June 29, 2009

It's been a few weeks away from the Pink Elephant Challenges and I'm back!! Still busy and I have some really cool stuff coming up in the next few days. I'll also take some pictures of the baby kitty. On a side note, that kitten ate more today than both of my adult kitties together. He even pushed the others out of the way and ate their food!

Alright, back to the challenge! The task is to make a card using your favorite colors. My favorite colors and color combos change by the week so how about what I'm into right now? I am absolutely loving Gray, yellow and cream together. This card was made using the June Unity KOTM with the new SU! Crushed Curry in color.

I was super excited to see how nicely all the colors came together. Doesn't if feel like a peaceful card? It almost makes me relax and goodness knows that doesn't happen often!

So far I have exactly one picture of Luger. This one was taken at Pet Smart and he stuck out his tongue at me. I have to say though, he is absolutely adorable and the most well adjusted kitten I have EVER met. Titus growled at him and made what I can only describe as jungle cat noises. Baby kitty didn't back down and I think earned Titus' respect. Pretty impressive for a baby kitty.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

['here did the weekend go? I swear I blinked and it's Sunday night. It's been a little busy here. We got a new kitty, a tiny adorable gray puff ball. We decided to name him Luger in honor of Kevin's favorite steak house, Peter Luger's in NYC. Delicious steaks and a fine name for a soon to be giant Maine Coon Kitty. We've been having a "wonderful" time introducing him to the other two. Right now he is sitting on my lap/computer as I type this post. Grin...

So, here is a little something I made for the Verve sketch challenge. I am loving the new SU! in colors. The crushed curry looks awesome with Basic Gray when paired with the designer paper from MME.

For the flower I took some designer paper and ripped it into 3 rough circles. I crumpled them and layered them together. I sewed it together with a button.

I hear some hissing, Godiva is still pretty unhappy with the new arrival, so I have to make sure everyone is still in one piece.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Who's back? MEEEEEEEE!!!! We had a lovely time in NY and Canada and I finally made it back into my stamp room tonight. More pix and stories to come on the trip. In the mean time, I whipped up this card for mt Thursday QKD blog post. I was SO happy when I discovered that the flowers in the Cosmo Cricket Ever After paper PERFECTLY match with the new Dusty Durango in color from SU!

Please pardon the picture, it's muy late as I make this posting. It looks like you can see the top of my head reflected in the window. The highlights look good. You can also catch a glimpse of the snazzy paint in that room. LOVE IT!!! Note: this is the new picture. MUCH better

K, I used my Shroomies stamp from Queen Kat Designs. Love the shroomies! I really want a sentiment that says. "just chillin' with my shroomies". I stamped it twice and colored with Copics. Then I cut out one of the sets of 'shrooms and popped them up on dimentionals. I used one of this month's Verve challenge sketches. I "interpreted" it a little differently since I embossed the pattern on the wrong side of the triangle. Shhhh...

Want your own shroomies? Clickie on the linkie above and take advantage of the 35% off sale going on right now! Don't forget to stop back on July 1st to see the new releases!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

I wanted to schedule a really quick post to help tide you over while I was away. As you read this we are headed to Kev's HS reunion in NY. Tomorrow we are going to Canada to Niagara falls. I've been harassing Kev that all of my other boyfriends took me to Canada why shouldn't my hubby? He rolled his eyes at me but caved. Grin. I am a little concerned since I can only look at all that water for about 5 minutes before I have to p.

Enough about me. Here's a little something I whipped up for a SU! card swap. I used Black, so Saffron and Basic Gray. I LOVE these colors together, so elegant! It was super simple too, except the cutting out of 39 butterflies for the swap...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Well, not here, obviously... Its Thursday (i hope!) and I made my very first post to the Queen Kat Stamps Blog! You see, as a new Royal Stamping Maid I have certain 'sponsibilities. One is that my thoughts and creations will be featured on their blog every Thursday. Mark your calendars since I KNOW you need to get a double dose of me every now and again.

So, what did I make? This....

All the stamps are from theQKD Friends set. Which just so happens to be 35% off right now! Head on over there and get you a deal! I colored Mr. Butterfly with Copic markers and added some bling. What do you think of the cardstock and dp? It's the new in colors from Stampin Up. Curry and Razzleberry. I like them!

Alright, Kev is waiting for me to finish this post so we can head on our road trip.Enjoy!Lara

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A special talent? I do, I can name most hair metal songs within the first few notes. We're in the car driving to state college pa and have the XM radio set to hair nation on channel 41. I don't look at the display and name the songs. Right now we have Fallen Angel by Poison. which is one of my all time favorite Poison songs. So, the weather stinks here! Nothing but rain all day and we are COLD. In NC you get used warm! Wish me luck on our trip!LaraSent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Monday, June 15, 2009

Did ya miss me??? Holly cow has it been crazy around here. I pulled my craft room apart to be painted along with 3 other rooms and when I got back from work that night, the walls were a mess. I spent the next 4 evenings taping and repainting around all the doors and windows. Oh, and cleaning the paint off the carpet and tile. The 5th night I build a brand new fish tank stand to replace the one I broke in the move. (Not terribly sad about that one though.) Grin... On the 6th day I rested and the 7th I made crafts.

No pictures of the room just yet, I still have some stuff to put away and I'm waiting for some vinyl wall clings to arrive. I LOVE those things!! So much easier than stenciling and MUCH cleaner.

So, this week I received my SU! pre-order with the new in-colors. I adore the new in colors, they are so pretty absolutely "in" right now. I wanted to use the new colors and the Melon Mambo and Soft Suede were perfect for this week's Pink Elephant Challenge which was to use pink and brown. I also decided to make a submission to the Hanna Stamps guest DT challenge.

I pulled out Ms. Sophie who was apparently wondering why her shorts weren't fitting as well as they did last year. If you look really closely, you can see the sentiment on the diagonal strips. It's from Odd Bird Planet and says "oh poop". (Love that one!)

So, I have some fabu stuff from QKD coming up over the next week or 2, so keep stopping back! We may have a few pix of the new patio and perhaps even a new furry friend!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I've been SO excited the past few days because we had painters coming to do my craft room, the master bath and the rest of the upstairs hall way. When we first moved in 3 years ago, I asked my employees to recommend a good painter. One lady's boyfriend was a painter and we hired him to come over. Jeff was AWESOME now, he was always 2 hours late, but he came with a roller, a brush and a drop cloth. No taping and PERFECT lines, absolutely perfect. I tried to call him 2 weeks ago and no answer. We tried the company he worked for, no answer. I was pretty sad, let me tell you. I remember when he painted for us before, Kev's dad told us, "Quick, at those prices, have him paint everything before he dies! have him paint it twice!". We should have listened.

Now I have a new job and asked my new employees for references. I had several and the guy we went with, his wife and mom work for me. I was so excited all day and I called Kevin 4 or 5 times to get updates. The last time, Kev said that I would need to do some touch ups. I was SO disappointed when I saw the mess they left. I've been taping around the doors and repainting the past 2 evenings. Sigh... I finished the craft room tonight and am off to work on the hall way. I'll be very happy once everything is completed and I can move everything back into place.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Are you every really proud of yourself for something only to later realize that you totally messed it up? That's what happened here. I wanted to 1. Use some of this designer paper from SU! "QUICK! only 3 weeks until retirement, use it up while you still can!! The new in colors are coming, the new in colors are coming!! AHHH!!!!"

Sorry, got a little frantic there for a bit. Anywho, I wanted to use up some of the dp and play along with not only the Mojo Monday sketch, but the Pink elephant challenge as well. I nailed the sketch, and for Pink Elephant, the challenge was 1 sentiment, 2 layers and 3 buttons.

Nope, not a single stinkin' button to be found. I realized that after I took the picture. Sigh... I missed last week's challenge after me and a chipboard birdie got into a fight. (Those darn birdies were like horror movie zombies, they kept coming and coming. I battled 5 of them then ran away.)

Wow! Where has this week gone? I didn't think I was that busy but it's Thursday night already. Crazy! It must be all the plans we've been making for the house, painting and a porch and our amazing yard of weeds being replaced with beautiful green grassy sod. Sod which they SWORE we couldn't kill. I'd still like a guarantee of some sort. If not, I swear I will revert to an astro-turf Brady Bunch yard. Kev and I can have potato sack races and he can hit me in the nose with a football.

So, I decided to make a card in homage of my favorite retiring SU! in color. Baja Breeze. I love Baja Breeze so much so that it will grace the walls of my master bathroom on Monday. Gotta love the Home Depot Color match.

I played along with the sketch challenge on OCCC this week and thought it was a perfect design to show off this luscious designer paper.

This card makes me happy. It also helped me to realize that I need Chocolate brown and Kraft towels for the soon to be painted bathroom. If I had my way, several rooms would be done in blue and brown. Kev should be happy that this is the only one. (so far....)

Monday, June 1, 2009

How was your weekend? I took Friday off and we headed to the beach. Even after living in NC for almost 4 years, it's still a novelty that the beach is only 2 hours away. Growing up, the beach was a once a year trip that took at least 8 hours. I really like that we can shoot over for an overnight trip.

We drove to the beach, spent lots of time in the sand, had a delightful dinner and went to a pretty lame craft show. It only had 4 vendors and a clown. I really dislike clowns. I think the face paint hides the sadness inside... I digress, every single year I'm convinced that I won't burn and every year I do. I am still a bit toasty and starting to get itchy. We did find some really cool aloe lotion with pain reliever. I like it...

In between my itches, how about another card I submitted for the QKD design team call? This one uses Joe the Monster. I love the slightly frantic look on his face. I look a little like this before my morning pot.

I used the coffee cup stamp, colored it and covered it with Stickles. Then I tied it just out of his reach. Tee Hee. Even if it was closer he couldn't reach it, since he has no arms...

About Me

Hi all! My DH and I live with our 3 cats in NC. I work FT as a sales trainer and I began paper crafting almost 3 years ago and wanted a place to show off all my "stuff". Here you'll find card makin's, pictures of stuff I see and my thoughts and observations on a wide variety of topics. Enjoy!